Mayor Michael Bloomberg standing by the NYPD and the “Stop and Frisk” policy is another example of something we are at risk of losing when he is gone: the independence of a politician that allows him or her to fight for a policy they know is working.

Good for the mayor for visiting First Baptist Full Gospel Church of Brownsville last Sunday and defending the policy. He needs to make the case to some of the folks who are the most skeptical, and at the very least he is not hiding in City Hall.

The problem with good police work is that we civilians never see crime that gets prevented, rather we only see the crime that actually occurs. The NYPD needs the support of the city as they work to further reduce crime.

The mayor admitted that there is a degree of profiling that should be addressed, but the policy is still a good one. We love to poke fun when Bloomberg takes on sugar in our beverages or smoking, but deep down inside we like that he has no real sacred cows. And we know this is something we are going to miss after he leaves.

Some critics feel he governs in a self-righteous manner, but he came in owing nobody and he leaves the same way. If we are going to keep smart policies like stop and frisk, the time is now.

How do our candidates feel about this policy? When we get answers from candidates that they “kind of support it, but it should not need to exist in the first place,” they are not showing the independence that we have grown to appreciate in the city. This is a real campaign issue that should be talked about in the major races in Queens and Brooklyn.

Red Storm Baseball

Last week was a great week for sports in our city, but something truly wonderful may have been hidden due to the fact that the Devils are in the Stanley Cup finals and the Yankees were playing the Mets in another inter-league series.

The Red Storm of St. John’s went pretty far in this year’s NCAA baseball tournament before falling to Arizona in the Super Regional Playoff Series. We associate the abbreviation NCAA with March Madness basketball, but getting to this level in baseball is extremely difficult, and this is a program that has been top notch for decades.

Four players at St. John’s were drafted by organizations in the first six rounds of the professional draft this year, which is phenomenal. For 17 seasons they have been a strong team under head coach Ed Blankmeyer, and they were a great team under head coach Joe Russo, Blankmeyer’s predecessor, who exited after the 1996 season.

St. John’s has turned out its share of Major League ballplayers, such as Frank Viola, John Franco, and Rich Aurilia. But there have been countless other good ballplayers who have been drafted from this program, and who have added to this tradition.

Red Storm basketball gets a great deal of attention, and it brings in a lot of money to the school. But the baseball team is an excellent sports program at SJU that never runs into controversy, which has not always been the case with other sports programs in the area.

The Stony Brook (SUNY) Seawolves are, in fact, headed to the College World Series, after they defeated Louisiana State University on Sunday. LSU is a major powerhouse in college baseball, and Stony Brook has proven that they belong in the same conversations with all the other big baseball programs at the college level.

The type of college baseball we have seen this year in Queens and Long Island may not be seen again for a long time, so good luck ‘Wolves. Hopefully, both St. John’s and Stony Brook will now have an easier time recruiting and can continue playing this kind of baseball.